Literary Suicide

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Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Over the
last few years there have been any number of articles written about the death
of the publishing industry.Or, I
should say, the traditional
publishing industry.And while an
embattled publishing industry is nothing new, the rise of ebooks and
self-publishing have caused the media spin surrounding the issue to change
drastically.In fact, through a
rather stunning feat of propaganda, publishers have managed to conflate their
rallying cry of "Save the Publishers!" with "Save the
Authors!"

What is
rarely explored in such articles is the fact that big publishers and authors
are not on the same side.In fact,
they're not even fighting the same battle.In a best case scenario, publishers and authors form a
mutually beneficial business alliance.But this is a far cry from the type of loyalty that a common cause
engenders—just watch how quickly a publisher will drop an author once there's a
dip in sales and that alliance ceases to be "beneficial" to them.

The
publisher wants to make money.Likewise, the author wants to make money.There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but there is
something wrong with pretending that the relationship is any more noble than
that.Even if you have a wonderful
editor who slaves over your every comma (and I've had a wonderful editor),
there's little she can do when the sales figures don't meet expectations and
someone upstairs decide to pull the plug on your next book.Because sales (i.e., money) is the
whole point of your association.

So when
publishers claim that the rise of self-publishing, ebooks, and Amazon is
destroying the "literary world," what they really mean is that these
things are destroying the "publishing world" as they know it (and
want it).They're afraid for the
potential loss of their own livelihood, not the livelihood of the writers they
publish.

To be clear,
authors are still writing books in droves, readers are still reading books in
droves (including ebooks), but the unfathomably archaic publishing industry has
become obsolete.In the age of
instant digital files, publishers still take a year and a half just to get a
book to market, and their ridiculously inefficient distribution/return system
dates from The Great Depression.Not only that, but in the same way that record companies fought tooth
and nail against the inevitable changeover from CDs to MP3s, publishers are
doing everything they can to promote print sales and delay the adoption of
ebooks.

The big six
publishers have launched a massive smear campaign to paint Amazon as a
predatory mega-corporation trying to monopolize the industry (if not the
world).What they neglect to
mention is that behind their friendly little imprints, they too are predatory
mega-corporations trying to monopolize the industry.My first novel was published by Harper Perennial, which is
owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.My wife's first two novels were published by Atria, which is likewise
owned by media leviathan Viacom.

Is Amazon
really worse than News Corp or Viacom?If one of the other mega-corporations of the publishing world had been
visionary enough to see ebooks as the future and pursued market share the way
Amazon has, do you really think it would be acting any differently?This is not a David versus Goliath
battle.This is a Goliath versus
Goliath battle.This is
capitalism.It's how business in
this country works.And just
because the business is "literature," doesn't change that.

So what does
this mean for authors?

It means
(duh) that we too need to look at books as a business.Until recently, the only practical
business model for a fiction writer such as myself was through the traditional
agent/publisher route.But the rise
of ebooks and the ability to self-publish has changed that.Despite all the nostalgia for print on
paper, ebooks are the future.And
despite publishers' attempts to belittle it, self-publishing is now a viable
business option.Authors such as
Amanda Hocking and Joe Konrath have proven it.

Choosing to
self-publish has some very distinct advantages.You can publish instantly, as opposed to waiting the
aforementioned eighteen months or so for a publishing house to get in
gear.You can earn up to 70% royalties,
as opposed to the tiny percentage publishers offer and most writers never
actually see.And most
importantly, you don't have to get the golden stamp of approval from an editor
(not to mention an agent, the head of sales, the head of marketing, and at
least ten other seemingly random people) before you can get your book out to
the public.

Are there
disadvantages?Of course.But since just about every other single
media piece written about self-publishing enumerates them ad nauseum, I won't
go into them here.

Obviously,
I'm not saying I wouldn't still sign with a major publisher if they offered me
a truly lucrative (and fair) deal.But they are no longer the only game in town.And despite overblown fears to the contrary, Amazon isn't
likely to soon become the only game in town either.While they might currently be the slickest of the various
self-publishing outfits, they in no way have a lock on this new world of
ebooks.After all, remember when
the mighty AOL had a "lock" on the Internet?

Authors have
been forced into subservience to the publishing industry for so long, that we've
forgotten that WE are the essential component of this business.We make the product.Without us, there is no business.

Why campaign
to "Save the authors!" when for the first time in history, we can now
save ourselves?

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

The word "genius" is tossed around lightly these days. And perhaps nowhere more so than in the ever hyperbolic world of contemporary fiction. It's the literary equivalent of academia's "grade inflation" and it sickens me.

After all, once we start referring to the rank amateur work of "writers" such as James Joyce, William Shakespeare, or Homer as genius, we devalue the very word itself.

Which is why I've decided to refer to my new novel Die Like a Girl as ultra-premium genius.

It's the story of...

Who the fuck am I kidding? It's not a story, it's the freakin' divine reanimation of the bloated adverb-ridden corpse of American literature. Die Like a Girl doesn't just transcend genres, it humiliates them. With extreme prejudice. Chuck Norris-style.

Now you might think that I'd charge something like $9,999,999,999.02 for such a work. And I would. Except, then you wouldn't buy it. (At least not as an ebook.) So instead, I'm going to give it away for FREE. Actually, I'm giving it away for BETTER THAN FREE.

And by "better than free," I mean $2.99.

How is that better than free?

Imagine you have a coupon for a free latte at a local coffee house in your pants pocket. The coupon expires today, but you still have seven minutes until closing, so you should be fine... Except, on the way to the coffee house, you happen to stroll across the International Date Line, and suddenly it's not Tuesday anymore, but Wednesday, and the coupon in your pants is expired. Worse yet, the giggles of the cute barista behind the counter as you enter the store cue you into the startling fact that you're not even wearing pants.

So, in summary, if aforementioned latte costs $3.57, and my novel costs $2.99. You just made 58 cents.

Do the math, bitches:

(Don't forget to carry the remainder.)

Anyway, here's the blurb:

Fiona
Blacklock sells drugs. Not the
hard stuff, but a rare hybrid strain of thousand-dollar-an-ounce marijuana
called Biodiesel. Given that she
lives in the left-wing Mecca of Portland, Oregon, the cops mostly just look the
other way—if they're not looking to score a little herb themselves.

Sure, she's
fifty grand in debt to a psychopathic loan shark named Barry the Hippie, but
other than that, it's really not a bad gig… that is, until she agrees to take
emo pop star Finn "The Well-Coiffed Penis" Jameson along on a drug
deal so that he can research a new indie film role. A drug deal that goes very very wrong.

Now Fiona
has to figure out who set her up, who's blackmailing who, where to
environmentally dispose of a disemboweled corpse, how to seduce the single most
attractive man in Hollywood… and, most importantly, whom to kill next.

(Praise for Jonathan Selwood's first novel "The Pinball
Theory of Apocalypse"):

"Read this book, because laughing yourself to death is
the second best way to go."—Arthur Nersesian

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

From the early years sending out short stories to lit mags and waiting up to TWO YEARS for a rejection (cough, Zoetrope, cough cough).

To sending out queries and sample chapters of my novel month after month trying to get an agent.

To submitting to publishers and waiting a year for my first novel NOT to sell, and then another eight months for my second novel to finally sell.

Of course, once the novel did sell, I only had to wait another 18 months or so for it to actually hit bookstores (and even then, they arrived late). And once the month or two of promotion for the new novel was over, I went back to... waiting.

If you were to ask me what the worst part about being a writer is, I'd have to say it's the waiting (and obviously, the worst part of the waiting is the waiting to get paid). And while there are some significant downsides to the new ebook revolution, the biggest UPSIDE is that the waiting is over.

I can put an ebook online any time I freakin' want to (instead of waiting 18 months for a publisher to put it out) and get paid with each individual sale (as opposed to waiting for years to see if royalties will ever appear... which, due to creative accounting, they won't).

Friday, November 11, 2011

A) Blather on for a good ten minutes praising the miracle that is the Kindle.

or

B) Tell me that while they've never even TRIED a Kindle, they just love the feel of a real book and could never imagine switching.

(Actually, there is a "C) With Netflix streaming 24/7, who needs a book?," but we'll ignore those ignoble people.)

In any case, if you've never tried a Kindle, how can you so vehemently defend print? I mean, I'm sure when electric light came in and replaced whale oil lanterns as a source of illumination, there were plenty of people who challenged the change--waxing nostalgic about the stench of burning rancid marine oil or lamenting the decline of the lucrative whaling industry. But once they TRIED electric light, they quickly changed their minds.

And really, when it comes down to it, how good are print books as a reading format? I personally hate reading hardcovers, because they're just awkward. And while there are a few "acid-free" books coming out that will last awhile, most books are starting to decay before you even bring them home from the store. (That "smell" of a book that whale oil-lovers are always going on about is really just the stench of literary compost). And as for the environmental angle--just look at the freakin' clearcut picture. Most readers don't understand that with the current publishing system, it's not just the paper books you buy contributing to the environmental apocalypse, but all the millions of copies that don't sell and get "pulped" (or half-assed recycled).

Sure, there will probably always be a romantic soft spot for paper books, just like there's still a romantic soft spot for ye olde timey oil lamps. But for the most part, the paper book is dead. And anyone who defends it hates whales.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

My soon to be self-published new crime novel is about a low-level marijuana grower here in Portland, Oregon who is almost killed in a drug deal gone horribly wrong. She subsequently manhandles, maims, and murders a staggeringly large number of people in an effort to figure out who set her up. It's filled with graphic violence, torture, excessive illegal drug use, and, yes, even a (tasteful) male mouth-rape scene.

There may have been a time when such things were shocking, but these days, crime readers have been primed to expect and accept the most disturbing (not to mention disgusting) situations imaginable. Hell, even prime time television is showing torture and male mouth-rape these days (C.S.I., The Shield... etc.) But you know what mainstream television and modern crime novels are not showing? Profanity.

If you've ever spent any time hanging out with real criminals, you noticed rather quickly that they f#%king swear all the m#th%rf#%cking c#%$ksu#$ing time. It seems like most crime novelists (and crime TV show writers) spend all their "research" time hanging out with cops and lawyers. Given that I spent most of my slightly wayward youth trying to avoid cops and lawyers, I took another route to my research. I hung out with honest-to-God criminals.

So when I wrote my soon to be self-published crime novel, I went ahead and left in the profanity in an effort to be "authentic." And the #%$@$$@$% hell if I'm gonna take it out...

...Except, I am going to take it out. Or at least 80% of it (there really is a pantload of cussin' in there).

It was actually my sister who got me to see the light with her wise words: "There's too much profanity in your novel." If it had been anyone else, I probably would have dismissed the criticism and kept on #$%#$%, but not only is my sister a huge crime fiction fan, but she... Well, she's my sister. So I went back through the manuscript and underlined every word of profanity, only to find that conjugations of the (ever conjugal) word f#%k appear at a rate of over four per page. And that's just f#%k. You should have seen how many times I used #$^&#%%#$%.

Rereading the book with non-#%$#%^*$ eyes, I can see that all this f#%king is just too much. It's a case where the "truth" (i.e., the verbal practices of real drug dealers) fails as fiction. It's too $%#$^# monotonous.

So, long story long, I'm taking out at least 80% of the profanity. Not because the publishing house "Man" is making me, but because my sister told me to. And she's right.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Duh. If I'm gonna publish my work on Kindle, I need to actually use a Kindle. I've played with the Kindle app on my iPod and briefly looked at my mother's old one, but Amazon is betting their new line of affordable Kindles will be the tipping point in e-book publishing. I think they're right.

Of course, the new Kindles aren't actually out yet, so I still have to wait for mine to ship. I went with the $99 Kindle Touch e-ink one, because I hate reading on a backlit screen (I spend all day on my laptop, anyway) and Gizmodo recommended it.

Why Kindle? As far as I can tell, it's the easiest way to electronically self-publish as well as the most popular. Plus, anything I publish on Kindle will show up on Amazon right next to my "traditionally published" novel The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse.